So while scrolling through my many many articles that have flooded my google account, I stumbled across one that I found very interesting regarding the increase of technology in classrooms, with statements from Bill Gates implying what Microsoft is doing to help improve the technology.

One of the points that the article made that I found very thought provoking was this:

Teachers may have trouble keeping up with students who are already using devices such as the Xbox Live gaming system at their homes, Gates said.

“When they [students] come back into the classroom and there’s a chalkboard there, that teacher has a hard time living up to the level of drama and richness,” he said.

This statement is very true. How can a teacher keep the students’ interest when they are competing with this technology that the students deal with day to day, by their own choice. Well, one of the things that Microsoft is doing is partnering with various school districts to build high-schools that are being referred to as a “School of the Future.”

In Philadelphia, the company joined the city’s school district and built a 750-student high school — called a School of the Future — that focuses on how technology can improve student performance. It opened in September 2006. The company provided technical guidance, which included the building of a secure Web portal for parents and students for access to assignments, class schedules and grades.

So, not only are these schools opening up a new world for technological advances in providing students with information for classroom assignments and activities, but they are also directing the same resource towards parents to keep them informed of what their students are doing in the classroom. In the locations where these schools have been placed, the students’ acheivements and grades have shown an improvement.

Even though however, the article only points out a couple of things that make these schools a bit more advanced, it is pretty easy to imagine what this one step will lead to in the future for technology that will become available to educators in the future.

Microsoft Backs Classroom Technology Programs

by JEREMY KIRK

February 1, 2007

Full Article

Hi! my name is Dana, and this is a blog that I will keeping up for two of my classes this semester. I am  an english major for secondary ed, and hope to get a lot out of these classes that will help me in classroom. As far as where my interests lie in what I want to focus this blog around, I’m not quite sure yet. So that will have to wait to be seen in my next entry and what articles I find interesting.

edit:

So topics have been decided on…for my Eng 310 class, I think I want to find information and views of technology in the classroom. Thinking about new approaches to it and such. And for Eng 311, I’m leaning towards writing on diversity issues in schools. Hopefully I will find soem good articles on these topics from the New York Times and the Grand Rapids Free Press.